More than 3 million cars made by Japanese companies Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda are being recalled, including more than 150,000 in the UK, over a potential airbag safety problem.

Toyota are recalling 1.73 million cars worldwide – 580,000 in North America and 76,000 in the UK – after five cases of airbags wrongly inflating came to light in Japan and the United States. No injuries have been reported, the company said.

The front passenger airbag may have been assembled with "improperly manufactured components", meaning in the event of a crash the airbag would not inflate fully or burst, a Toyota UK spokesman said. The recall affects seven Toyota models produced between November 2000 and March 2004, bearing an X to a 54 number plate, including the Corolla, Yaris, Camry and Avensis.

The airbags were produced by Tokyo-based company Takata, which makes airbags and seatbelts for major carmakers, including non-Japanese companies such as Daimler and Ford.

Takata spokesman Toyohiro Hishikawa told the Reuters news agency that some non-Japanese carmakers were also supplied with the faulty airbags, but declined to name them.

Honda said 1.1 million cars were being recalled worldwide, including 680,000 in North America and 15,475 in the UK. Most of the UK-affected cars were CRVs sold in 2002-03, although a small number of Stream and Jazz cars could be affected, a company spokeswoman said.

Nissan is recalling 59,058 cars sold in the UK, out of 480,000 globally, including the X-Trail, Patrol, Almera, Terrano II and Pick Up. The recall also affects 1,913 Mazda 6 models bought in the UK between 2002 and 2003.

The companies have said they will be writing to customers and have promised to fix faulty airbags free of charge – a process between 60 and 90 minutes.